Authors: Anne Bishop
The shadow Trist smiled at them and said, “The worst is still to come.”
Then it vanished.
Surreal closed the door—and swore when the door vanished too.
Rainier studied the wall, then shook his head and took a step back. “If that’s an illusion, I can’t tell without touching the wall.”
“Which would put your hand on the wrong side of the shield.” Surreal looked around, swore, and pointed to the back wall. “That wasn’t there before.”
A door. She had created her shield a hand span away from the walls to avoid triggering any spells that might be
in
the walls. Looked like she’d made the right choice. Still, in the morning, the only way out of the room was through a door that held who knew what on the other side.
She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Next?”
“Food and water,” Rainier said. “We’ll use my stash.”
He didn’t expect to get out of the house, Surreal realized. If he died and made the transition to demon-dead, he might get pulled into the spells and become an enemy instead of still fighting with her. If that happened, she wouldn’t have access to the supplies he carried. That’s why he wanted to use his supplies first. But neither of them actually put that into words.
The other thing neither of them said was that she would be able to destroy him, to finish the kill, but if
she
was the one who died and turned on him, he wouldn’t be able to survive her attack. So keeping her alive was the only chance that one of them would get out of this house.
He called in a jug of water and a chill box that was inside a large wicker picnic hamper—the kind that had a separate compartment to carry dishes, glasses, and silverware.
Surreal blinked. She’d brought water, yes. Always carried some with her. But her stash of food was four apples she grabbed from a bowl in the town house’s kitchen as she and Rainier were leaving.
“You carry a chill box?”
He looked puzzled. “Why not?”
She didn’t answer that, too busy wondering if a chill box was something all escorts kept with them or if this was just Rainier.
He opened the chill box’s lid and pulled out a whole roasted chicken, a small wheel of cheese, and three apples.
“What, no sweet?” she teased.
“The chicken had already been cooked when we changed our plans for the evening. We didn’t get much dinner, since we rushed to get here—”
She snorted.
“—so I figured a harvest picnic after viewing the house would be appropriate.” «And I did bring a sweet,» he added, «but it’s not in the chill box, so you’ll have to do without.»
She grinned at him and opened the compartment that held the silverware and dishes.
They were joking, smiling, eating! How could they find anything amusing? Why weren’t they
afraid
?
The worst was still to come, but they had managed to shut out all his pets. Nothing in that room but a couple of the little, creepy spells, and the bitch had already spoiled one of them by not letting the children eat the grapes. Unless the Warlord Prince insisted on sex, nothing interesting would happen while they stayed in that room.
But no. The Surreal bitch outranked the Warlord Prince, so he couldn’t insist on being pleasured, even though she
had
been a whore.
No matter. When he wrote the Landry Langston version of this little adventure, he’d make things interesting. Besides, stories always needed an interlude before the final storm.
“So.” Surreal bit off a piece of apple and chewed slowly. The wheel of cheese was gone, and the chicken was nothing more than a jumble of bones. With their tummies sufficiently full, the children had fallen asleep before they’d gotten to the apples. Just as well. She and Rainier needed the extra food, since their bodies, as the vessels of the power they wielded, burned up food faster. “If this was one of those mystery stories we’ve read, where do you think we’d be now?”
Rainier looked around the sitting room. “Well, we’ve had death and danger, we’ve been warned that there is worse coming, and we’re barricaded in a room in order to get some rest. In terms of story, this is the place where the two main characters have fast, hot sex.”
They looked at each other.
“So what do you want to do in the five minutes
that
would have taken?” Surreal asked.
Rainier huffed out a laugh. “
Surreal.”
“What? Remember that one we read where the man’s penis wept in gratitude? Personally, I thought he was just leaking, and that the woman, who swore it was the best sex she’d ever had, was being very polite. I know this because when I was a whore and had to be very polite in that way, I always charged a lot more.”
“Hush.” Rainier’s face was turning red with the effort not to laugh loud enough to wake the children.
She looked at the painting above the fireplace mantel. Blood still oozed down the woman’s chest from the wounds inflicted by her lover. Then Surreal looked at the children. They were all so exhausted, she doubted they were capable of overhearing anything, but she switched to a psychic thread anyway.
«Has this all seemed odd to you?» she asked.
«In any particular way?» Rainier replied dryly.
She hooked her hair behind one ear. «I don’t know. It just seems…Not tame, exactly.»
Rainier looked away. «Three children have died. That isn’t tame.»
«And more died before we walked into this place. I know. But it’s…clumsy. Deadly, yes, but…» She wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him, wasn’t even sure what she was sensing.
Rainier hesitated. «Your family has a vicious elegance that is unmatched anywhere in the Realm. The only males and witches who come close are the ones who served in the First Circle at Ebon Askavi, and they rule the Shadow Realm now. These are your friends, your family. And frankly, Lady, that is the level of Craft that you yourself wield. This place may not be elegant, but it’s a well-constructed trap.»
«Yes,» she agreed. «Well constructed but not elegant.»
«If any Black Widow in your family had built this place with the intention of destroying whoever walked in here…»
Surreal shivered. Seductive. Alluring. Lethal. Breaking a person down layer by layer. Weaving pain and pleasure together until both were a torment you would beg to feel.
Clickety-clack. Tippity-tap.
The sound—and Rainier’s gentle nudge—brought her wandering thoughts back to the room and the potential danger.
Clickety-clack. Tippity-tap.
Something white, scurrying along the baseboard just inside her shield, tapping on the wood floor.
They watched the skeleton mouse scurry-scurry until it reached the corner of the hearth. Then it sat back on its haunches and turned its skull until it seemed to be looking right at them.
She wished she still had a crumb of cheese left to toss to it—just to see what would happen.
The mouse held its position for a moment longer, then scurried away.
Clickety-clack. Tippity-tap.
«Was that one of Tersa’s spells?» Rainier asked.
«Had to be.» A good example of the elegance Rainier had pointed out. Bizarre? Sure. Even for Tersa. But the skill it took to create that bit of Craft was several levels above the nasty surprises.
And thinking about the difference in that level of skill made her very glad Tersa wasn’t one of the Black Widows trying to kill them.
Daemon’s frown deepened as he walked up to the Coach. Where in the name of Hell were the shields? Jaenelle
wouldn’t
have been that careless. There was no reason to think the landens would challenge her presence in their village or even venture close enough to be a threat to the Coach and its inhabitants, but there was no reason to believe the person who had created that “entertainment” had kept the danger inside the fence.
Then he reached for the Coach’s door—and felt power spiral up around his ankles, his calves, his knees.
No warning. He stood perfectly still while Jaenelle’s death spells rubbed against him like a contented cat, sang over his skin like silk.
Recognition of his psychic scent, the Jewels he wore, him as a man.
The death spells released him, fading away with one final, playful, fingertip caress down his cock.
She was smiling when he stepped into the Coach, but he asked anyway. “Was that last bit especially for me?”
“Of course.”
She was sitting at the small table in the Coach’s sitting area. She’d opened a bottle of wine, and there was a glass, almost empty, near her hand. The table was covered with papers. He couldn’t tell if they were notes to friends that she was writing to occupy the time or something else that fit the chill he detected in her psychic scent.
He braced one hand on the table, leaned over, and gave her a long, soft kiss. Then he looked over at the boy, Yuli, who was sound asleep on the short bench opposite the table.
“He has scars on his back—and a different kind of scar on his heart,” Jaenelle said too softly.
“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked just as softly. A sincere question. If she wanted to unleash him as a weapon against whoever had harmed the boy, he would be her weapon.
“I think the District Queens should be encouraged to look more closely at the orphans’ homes in landen villages. Especially the places that raise half-Blood children as an accommodation.”
“Was anyone aware of this accommodation?” Meaning, had Saetan been aware of it when he ruled Dhemlan?
“Yes. The Blood parent is held responsible for the child, and there is a minimum allowance that must be paid for the child’s support. If the parent can’t pay the full amount, the Queen must make up the difference from the tithes that support her and her court. The penalty for not meeting that minimum allowance for each child is…severe.”
He’d been ruling this Territory only a few months, and it looked like he was going to shake up—and scare the shit out of—the Dhemlan Queens once again.
Jaenelle rested a hand over his. “I don’t think this is common. I know for a fact that Sylvia regularly inspects the orphans’ home in the landen village under her rule, and she doesn’t announce her presence until she’s walking in the door.”
“I see.” He understood the message. He ruled the Territory, but the District Queens—and the Province Queens above them—had to be allowed to rule their pieces of Dhemlan according to their own nature. He drew the lines of what he would and wouldn’t tolerate in his Territory—and he would deal with anyone foolish enough to cross one of those lines, especially if it was someone who held power over others. But every Queen’s court had a different tone, a different flavor. The Blood needed the flexibility of those differences just as they needed the implacable line.
And he’d needed the reminder that, while this particular District Queen might not be as diligent as she would need to be hereafter, most of the other Queens had not been so careless.
“Sylvia brought Saetan with her once,” Jaenelle said, a mischievous sparkle in her sapphire eyes.
Picturing that amused him, as she’d known it would. “That must have been an exciting day for the administrators of the orphans’ home.”
“So I gathered.”
He moved the other chair so he could sit close to her. “Did our young friend say anything else of interest?”
She filled the wineglass and offered it to him. He took a sip, then handed it back.
“Jarvis Jenkell, who is a famous landen writer—so famous even the Blood might have heard of him—used to be a frequent visitor at the school. Reading between the lines of what Yuli said, Jenkell was supporting one or more of the children who lived at the house, although it wasn’t clear
who
he was supporting. I gathered he never claimed to be the father of any particular child, just claimed a fellowship with children who grew up in such places.”
“I found out this evening that Jarvis Jenkell is Blood.”
Ice and shadows came and went in the depths of her eyes. Despite no change in her appearance, he knew the difference—and knew who now spoke to him.
“I see,” Witch said.
As a landen, Jenkell, if he was in fact the person behind this spooky house, would have been judged in keeping with the laws that governed landens, and the man would have been punished accordingly. As Blood…Well, the rules were different for the Blood.
“A girl named Anax claimed Jenkell was her father,” Witch said. “But she has claimed a variety of men as her father, so it was difficult to judge her sincerity. However, based on the description I was given, she is like Yuli in that most of her heritage does not have its roots in the Dhemlan race.”
“Jenkell was originally from Little Terreille.”
“Anax and several other children from the house have ‘run away’ over the past few weeks.”
He turned his head in the direction of the house, even though he couldn’t see it through the walls of the Coach. “Maybe they didn’t run far.” He turned over the pieces of information and found more and more reasons to hone his temper. “Did you find out anything about the spells wrapped around the house?”
“The Black Widows were strong and quite talented. And they anticipated someone trying to pick their webs apart.”
“So we can’t work from the outside.”
“Not if we want Surreal and Rainier to remain among the living. I’m still looking for a way to get around the trap spell without triggering the death spells.”
He took Jaenelle’s hand and kissed her palm.
Among the Blood, there was no law against murder. But that didn’t mean payment wasn’t extracted when required. While riding the Black Wind back to this village, he’d tallied up all the things he’d learned about this haunted house and what must have been done to create such a place. So he knew what would be required to pay the blood debt owed to him as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan and to the people whose lives had been taken without good reason.
Since Jaenelle had told him they needed a Coach that would accommodate several people, they had used the one that was big enough to be a flying two-story flat.
“I have some work to do.” He gave her hand one last kiss and stood up. “I’ll work in one of the upstairs bedrooms so I don’t disturb you or the boy.” That wasn’t the reason, but it was one of those lies that was understood for what it was—a public excuse for a private matter.